The proposed investigation addresses the issues of emotional and adjustment difficulties frequently associated with breast cancer and the ways in which counselling techniques can be used to alleviate these problems. Breast cancer patients will be randomly assigned to one of three selected counselling techniques or will receive standard nursing care during an eight to ten week period of time while they are undergoing a first course of radiotherapy. Evaluation of the short- and long-term effectiveness of the counselling techniques will be accomplished by measuring the patients' functioning on a number of dimensions related to emotional adjustment difficulties recognized as common to breast cancer patients on five specified occasions over approximately an eighteen-month period. Self-report measures and objective ratings by staff using scales will be utilized to assess the patients' emotional reactions to their illness, e.g., degree of depression and anxiety, the presence of physical problems and psychological symptoms, and characteristics of their current adjustment including quality of interpersonal relationships as well as their participation in activities such as work, social and community activities and sexual relationships as compared to their functioning before they had cancer.